


As One Flesh They Were

by Sarasti



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, it ends happily i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:49:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarasti/pseuds/Sarasti
Summary: "Eren started to call Armin "lagun maitea", his dear friend, and Armin called Eren "clara solis", his bright sun, in the Latin they spoke in his classes. Eren felt embarrassed at being called that - he had never felt like he shone at anything - but Armin said it fit him. Armin said listening to him speaking his own language was seeing another side of him, a side that he liked even if he didn’t understand the words."Eren is a mercenary in medieval France and Armin is the university student he falls in love with.
Relationships: Armin Arlert & Eren Yeager, Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No ship is complete without a Medieval AU. I didn’t want to bother with writing historically accurate homophobia in this, so it’s set in an alternate version of the middle ages where everything’s the same except that no one bats an eye at same-sex relationships. And there are probably supernatural creatures running around, but not enough to change history much. I didn’t want to do too much research, so if any amateur or professional historians read this and discover gross inaccuracies I’d prefer it if you’d take it as artistic licence. They definitely wouldn't have such Germanic names if they were from the places they're from in the text, but I thought that making up original names would be silly.

“8. No one should be deprived of love without a valid reason.  
18\. Moral integrity alone makes one worthy of love.  
23\. He who is vexed by the thoughts of love eats little and seldom sleeps.”  
-Andreas Capellanus, De Amore

"And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche."  
-Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

* * *

_Southern France, 1450s_

Armin Arlert never once thought that he was anything remarkable. Everything that was any interesting seemed to be happening to other people in far-off places. He often thought his own existence was much like the endless fields that surrounded his small hometown of Rodez – flat, monotonous and going on without change for too long. Very little happened in the city itself either, so he became obsessed with books in order to while away the time he didn’t spend at school. His father was a successful merchant and his mother an almost equally successful seamstress, both were avid readers and wanted to give their only child as thorough an education as possible. At age 11 he found a book titled “The World Within Our Borders and Beyond”, where he properly understood for the first time that the world extended much further outside his own home than even he had previously thought. _Much_ further. It just went on and on, further than anyone had even been able to map. It was like a bottomless box of caramels that never ran out or offered the same piece twice. Not far to the south of him, there was a salty ocean which, if the narrow isthmus at the pillars of Hercules had been closed off, would instead be a massive lake. The Mediterranean. That was the center of the world in his time – it was a massive highway around which all of Christendom revolved, and led even into Islamic lands. On it, you could go anywhere. To the merchant-cities of Italy, to the Pope in his Rome, to the Greek sea of islands, to the domains of the crown of Aragon, to what was left of Constantinople, to the Holy Land, beyond the Strait of Gibraltar and into the even bigger Atlantic. He became dead set on moving near it. He had barely lived for more than a decade and he already felt that he had seen all that Rodez had to offer. If more than the town existed, he felt no obligation to stay in it.

He learned that there was such a thing as _universities_ , places dedicated entirely to knowledge and learning. He could scarcely believe that. There were whole schools where people did what he loved most at all hours of the day? If he had any chance of attending one, he would take it even if it came with a risk of death. There was one university quite nearby that fulfilled all his dreams. It lay right next to the Mediterranean, in the part of his country where his own language of Occitan was spoken. In the city of Montpellier – one of the biggest in all of France at that time. Every day he would beg his parents to let him go there until they either relented or beat the dream out of him. They chose the former. A private tutor was hired, and they set to work on preparing him for the entrance exam.

His teens were dedicated to his studies, since he didn’t dare to get anything lower than the highest possible marks. Partially because he genuinely wanted to study there and knew that competition was harsh, partially because it was his best ticket out of Rodez and away from his parents’ watchful gaze. He was book-smart, but didn’t think he had very many other skills. He certainly lacked both his father’s sense for business and his mother’s skill at the sewing board and most other careers either didn’t interest him or intimidated him. He was going to Montpellier to study the natural world, and from there… Who knew?

* * *

When he first arrived in the city of limestone and learning at age 18, he wanted to crack it open and swallow it. He wanted to see every building from every possible angle. He wanted to see how it changed as the sun made its way over the dome of the sky, how the streets went from empty and dark to bustling and bright and back again. He wanted to eat at every tavern and pray at every chapel. Montpellier wasn’t a port town like Marseille, but seagulls still made their way into it. On some days, he swore that he could smell the salty sea air on the wind. He would study there for four years, and now that he had gotten out on his own for the first time he didn’t dare to make anything other than the most of it. His living quarters were a small bedroom at the far end of the campus, which in turn lay right next to the city wall. He had his own room and a small window through which he could see the wall and some hills beyond, but everything else – bathroom, washroom, kitchen, etc, was shared. That was enough for him.

While he loved being at school and finding that not much of its’ charm was lost from familiarity, not everything came easy. He did manage to make more friends than he had in his hometown, but he still felt oddly separate from the other students in a way he didn’t like. Most of the others were nobility or otherwise children of very wealthy people and treated their stay at the school as something unremarkable, downright boring. A chore. They weren’t very passionate and often complained about their dull workload and their stuffy teachers. They were born into privilege and would in all likelihood stay in privilege until death. Since they had never had anything else, privilege was boring and obvious to them. Armin, not having had quite as much of a silver spoon in his mouth, thought the school was a gift compared to the sea of ignorance he’d grown up in, even if he knew that the institution of the university wasn’t perfect. It was a shame that there were so many careerists and cynics there. He had dreamed that it would be a wise and gentle place free from the selfishness, the everyday violence and greed he had seen in his hometown. He knew on some level that that was unrealistic, but he couldn’t help but be disappointed when the image in his head turned out false. There was much to like about it, but the government and church still had their hand in the life of the college like they had their hands in the life of everything else. There was backstabbing in the name of career advancement, prioritizing of projects that would lead to more profits and fame for the people involved over interesting and pressing research, lazy thinking, hazing and peer pressure. The people there weren’t a separate breed from the ones he had grown up with. In fact, they were very much alike.

As he got older he also began to have doubts about his vague plan to see the whole world – or at least a lot of it. He hadn’t _really_ had a concrete plan for what he would do once he was finished with school, just that he wanted to see and do more than he could back in Rodez. The world out there turned out to be full of dangers, as well. It wasn’t all ruined castles, ornate cathedrals, burgeoning markets and beautiful men in soft clothes like he’d dreamed about. It was also hatred, robbery, pointless cruelty and endless wars.

He also realized that he wouldn’t want to travel out there all by himself for very long. Both for purely practical reasons - going with others was always safer - and for emotional reasons - he wanted to share the experience with someone. Seeing all of that and then going home to his lonely bedroom with only himself and his memories of the trip for company had started to seem increasingly bleak. When he was 21, his studies were almost over and he still didn’t know how he would answer the question of what to do with all those dreams of his. He could delay acting upon them until later, but for how long?

* * *

_Pamplona, Kingdom of Navarre, around the same time_

In Eren’s dreams, he’s often back in the narrow streets of Pamplona again, running from the bulls. They almost catch up on him, get much closer to him than they ever got in real life. They are very silent, and seem to get bigger and bigger as they approach. It’s when he turns around to look at them that he always startles awake. He can’t feel it in the dreams, but when he wakes up he remembers the sweat running down his back and everywhere else, his limbs sore as they work their way through the front of the group. His head had been quiet at that moment, everything else fading away as he concentrated on avoiding being trampled by the cattle. Those bull runs, and the San Fermín festival, had always been the highlights of his years there. Maybe that’s why his mind kept returning to them. It brought it up to remind him of what he had left behind so he wouldn’t be allowed the relief of forgetting.

He had lived in the _Navarrería_ neighborhood, the poorest of the city’s three parts. His family were farmers and minor craftsmen, poor but close-knit in the time they had away from work and weren’t exhausted from it. His older brother and sister were the pride and joy of the family, they would bring it out of poverty by their good sense and strong work ethic. Meanwhile, Eren felt like the runt of the litter. He had heard rumors from cousins that his parents hadn’t wanted a third child and thought he had seen signs that pointed to that being true. They certainly scolded him a lot more than they did his siblings, though that was also because he gave them more reasons to. He never managed to do what others told him to, especially if what they said had something to do with going on the straight and narrow path. He spent his days walking around the streets looking for fights. When he did not, he ate, slept and did his chores without joy.

It was after the San Fermín of his 17th year that the tune of his life, previously so monotone, would change in a major way. He was in a natural high after the bull run and had lots of unspent energy left, so he snook after one of the other boys who had run in the race with him, cornered him in an alleyway and beat him senseless. The adrenaline rush he got as his fist connected to the other's jaw was incomparable to anything else. The leader of a local group of mercenaries who had also partaken in the race was walking nearby, heard sounds of fighting and walked to the alley to see if all was well. He saw the sheer determination and force with which Eren delivered a beatdown to the poor boy his own age who had only wanted to go home to dinner with his family, and thought that a zest and energy like that couldn’t be wasted on random fights in alleyways. If they could recruit him to his guild, they would have a real asset.

And so it was that Eren Yeager, after much difficulty, finally settled on a career path. His mother was angry, saying that mercenary work was violent and dangerous and that he should do something sensible like his siblings, but he wouldn’t have it. They had yelled at him a few times too many, and now the scolding had lost its value. It was like trying to make a cat stop hunting mice. He had finally found something he both liked doing and was good at that would also allow him to make a living. He promised to send some of the money he earned to his family. Despite often lashing out at them, he really did want to be useful. It was just that he never knew how.

Eren was Basque, and so was the language he spoke. The mercenaries weren’t, though. They were Occitan, with connections to other bands and people of import to the north of the thick wall of the Pyrenees. Pamplona, or _Iruña_ as the Basques called it, was quite diverse and he had already picked up some basic Occitan from all the time he had spent on its streets. Before he would become a fully fledged member of the group he would be subjected to both rigorous combat training and language lessons so he could communicate with the other mercenaries as well as potential contacts throughout France. He relished the combat training, but less so the language ditto, pushing himself through it by willpower alone since he knew it would be useful. Plus, if he got it done quickly, he could go back to learning how to use a sword.

French lands were richer than those in Iberia for the most part, and contracts there generally paid better. It was the band’s home turf, and they felt more comfortable operating there where they fully knew the language and the customs of the people. They had been in Navarre for a number of years, and all of them had started to think they had done all they could there. Plus, there were rumors that mighty Castille was planning an attack on the tiny Kingdom of Navarre, and they had no wish to become caught up in that conflict. So, when Eren had turned 18 and was done with his training – he had more than lived up to their expectations – they decided to cross the mountains and pursue their trade in greener pastures. Both figuratively and literally. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to leave everything he had known behind, but he also knew that it was one of the few chances he’d get to actually make something of himself. He would come back one day.

* * *

The general shape of his life for the next five years was thus: Travel around the countryside in search of a walled town. Ask the local lords or wealthier merchants if they had any threats towards them or vendettas to settle. Carry out their work. Collect payment. Eat, drink and be merry. Move on to the next town when the jobs ran out. If really pressed for money: rob a passing trade caravan. Eren was a rising star, and their reputation quickly grew throughout Languedoc, Gascogne and Provence. After two years they didn’t have to resort to robbery to get by anymore.

He had spent his time on the planet turning his body and mind into instruments for inflicting pain on others. Where other people had worked the bellows or tended crops, Eren had fought. Violence was what Eren had, what he was. Take that away from him and what was left? That thought had started to rear its ugly head increasingly often. His group wasn’t strapped for funds anymore, and the others had started to speak about settling down, about starting families and doing various things with the money they were earning. When they asked, he didn’t really know what to do with it. He had started to stockpile his wages that he didn’t send home for the day when he could come up with what he wanted to do with them. That made him feel a bit ashamed, so he hid it from the others. He was afraid that the answer to his question would be: nothing. Four years into his time as a mercenary, he decided to quit cutting his hair with any regularity. By the time he reached Montpellier it went down to his shoulders. He didn’t quite know why, but changing hairstyle from the one he’d had since he was a child made him feel good.

There was a kind of wonderful thoughtlessness to it all. Other people hired him to do their dirty violent work for them and he did it without complaint. To them, he was pretty much just a suit of armor holding a sword. The fact that there was a person in there was incidental. It could’ve been anyone – young or old, foreign or familiar, male or female even, as long as it got the job done. He didn’t have to concern himself with much while out in the field, only that the work was done so he could feed himself and his men and wake up another day for more work. He did what he had always been good at, and sent enough money back to his family to make up for his troublesome younger days. What somebody like that _thought_ or _felt_ didn’t really matter much. That was freeing.

Armin and Eren’s paths, different but similar as well, would cross when Eren’s group reached Montpellier, having been called there by the university for a special mission.


	2. Chapter 2

A certain type of creature had slithered into the college’s extensive basement. The university had been built over an age-old subterranean structure that went back to Roman times, and it was now used as storage for books, taxidermy animals, flasks of various chemicals, and the like. The basement was so big that its true extent was unknown, and they didn’t have the resources to keep it all well-lit and under guard. Much of it was unexplored. Students would often sneak down there for romantic trysts and even illegal parties. How the creature had gotten there wasn’t known, but it could’ve come from the cave system that stretched into the hills above the city and perhaps further still. It was large, slimy, dangerous, had many tentacles and appendages and needed to be dealt with posthaste to prevent it from doing untold damage to property, staff, and students. If the university was damaged or destroyed, Montpellier would lose one of its largest sources of income and talent. Eren’s group of brigands was at this point renowned, and their leader Bertrant was seriously considering passing the torch down to him. They would collaborate with the city guard to kill what was turning into a threat to the whole city.

Armin saw Eren for the first time as the mercenaries walked through the entrance hall accompanied by some city guards. They would first scout the basement for signs of the creature and see if it had any nest or sleeping spot, then they would return with a large force to kill it while it was at its most vulnerable. Armin wondered what this group of mercenaries that had seen so much was like. He joined a group of students who had gathered in the hall to look at the people who would decide the future of their school. When he saw them making their way through the hall with the expected looks on their faces – some were gruff and determined, some looked smug and boastful, seeming to say that nothing had been a threat to them so far and nothing ever would – he noticed one of them seemed to stand out from the group. His facial features were subtly different, as well as the way he carried himself. All the others seemed to put on a show for the gawking students, knowing that they were a different breed from the meek intellectuals there and exaggerating their strength, their bravery. They were there to do what all these fine-bred people couldn’t. That man wasn’t like that, though. He seemed unaffected, not bothering to put on an act in order to impress anyone. He wasn’t boisterous like the others, but intense and rather serious. His almond-shaped silver eyes and long black hair helped with that impression. Was there a note of sadness in his look? It seemed to Armin there was. That man interested him. He hoped to get to know what he was like more closely when he joined them to offer his services.

Armin had a hobby that very much tied into what the violent men were there to do. He would feel guilty if he didn’t do his best to help them.

When he didn’t have any studies at the moment, he wanted to get out and move. Sitting hunched over a desk at all hours of the day didn’t do one many favors. In his childhood he had spent hours and hours just exploring his hometown and the area around it, and he had kept up the habit as a young adult. He walked around the university campus day and night in search of nooks and crannies he hadn’t seen before. He took to striking up conversations with students from other dorms just so he could visit their halls and came up with excuses to talk to professors so he could see their offices. He started making hand-drawn maps on parchment, noting down his favorite spots. After two years he had seen all the campus had to offer unless he was to break into the bank vault, which he wasn’t keen on. He moved on to the dark endless basement. He became somewhat obsessed with it, spending much time wandering through it and making an extensive map. He even slept down there a couple of times, observing what the lack of daylight did to his sleep schedule and perception of time. He was surprised that the college hadn’t bothered much with it before. If they explored it properly, they were sure to discover some real treasures.

Even though Armin liked his friends a lot, he never invited them to his expeditions to the basement. He didn’t even tell them he went there. Being down there was something rather different from talking with them about philosophy, theology or just having fun playing games or having drinks about town. It was huge and silent, something that wasn’t easily shared or put into clever words. He was walking through the remnants of centuries of human activity, always finding new spaces he hadn’t been in before. He didn’t have to come up with any interesting thoughts or funny conversation topics. It was just him and the dusty galleries the Romans and the Normans and who knows who else had left behind. He went silent for so long that hearing his voice again when he went back up to the surface was almost startling. If he was ever to invite somebody along on his journeys, they would have to be someone he would like to see every single part of him and not just the ones he held up to deal with the world. He still wished to share the experience with someone, but he didn’t want to bring somebody along just so he wouldn’t be alone. He was picky. The ruins were special to him, so it followed that his company would have to be someone special as well. Someone whose presence was as immense as that of the ruins.

* * *

“The first time I went down there, I was so scared... I wasn’t prepared and had only brought a small stearine light. I only got a little way in before I gave up and turned around. I didn’t want to be ruled by fear, so I brought a proper lantern the next time and pushed through my feelings. I was never afraid of that place again after that. Instead it became a comfort – I really liked going down there. I don’t like to brag, but I think I might be the one who knows the most about those catacombs.”

“Did you notice any signs of creatures or anything else that was dangerous?” said Bertrant. He was a big man of about 50 with a graying beard and short hair. He gave off a very sturdy impression, and it was clear that his crew held much respect for him.

“No, nothing like that… Sure, there were spiders and snakes and things and some shaky pillars, but nothing that posed any real threat. For the most part it was really just me and all that old junk. It’s funny, despite me being the one who has put myself in the most danger out of all of them, I wasn’t the one who was actually hurt by the creature. It was just one of the new students who had gone down there to hide a wine flask.” The staff didn’t look too kindly on liquor, but they tolerated it as long as the students were sneaky about it and didn’t cause trouble.

“It was his first time there. Maybe he was as scared as I had been. It bit off his right leg at the knee. He will have to jump around on a stilt the rest of his life, and I’m here no worse off than I’ve ever been... Sorry, I know I have a tendency to ramble. Helping you out is really the least I can do. It would kill me to sit on all this knowledge without putting it to use.”

Eren looked at this soft-spoken blond student. He looked like he wouldn’t be able to shoo off a rat that had snuck into his bed. Had _he_ spent an untold amount of time in a big scary catacomb? Was _he_ going to guide them down there? It was good that there wasn’t any wind in the basement – he looked like he might be snapped in half like a twig by an overly strong breeze. He was amazed that people like that managed to survive for this long in this world where parents killed their children because they didn't have enough food to give them. Humans sure could be different from one another. He was curious what this man (boy? He looked like a boy, but spoke like a man) had that allowed him to exist. Armin noticed Eren was staring at him, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

* * *

Armin was at the front of the group with Eren and Bertrant as they went through the catacombs, torches and lanterns in hand. His map was simply drawn without any artistic flourish, but it was accurate and well thought-out. He hadn’t mapped the whole basement, but it showed much more than just the parts the university used for storage.

They didn’t talk about much other than the basement, combat strategy and the creature they were facing, not having very many common points of interest. Armin asked them about what they had done before they got this job, and Bertrant and Eren told him anecdotes of jobs they had done and people they had met. Those two were the chattiest – the other mercenaries seemed to look at Armin with some suspicion.

After wandering somewhat aimlessly through the gloom for several hours, probing further and further in, they found a trail to follow. There was a glowing greenish blue mucus in bits and spots on the ground and walls. It had to come from something organic. They followed the glowing bits of gunk through the halls, and round a corner they found what they had been looking for.

It had a big mouth like a lamprey’s with rows and rows of long sharp teeth. It was about the size of an elephant (or at least what Armin had read of the size of an elephant) and it’s skin was black but covered with large spots of glowing green and blue luminescence. It had a lot of tentacles, also glowing, which it used to pull itself around the scenery. Nothing about it seemed friendly. Armin had read of exotic frogs that used bright colors to indicate that they were dangerous, and from what he had understood it was if the whole animal was a giant signpost reading "Stay away! Do not touch! Here lies only danger!". It lay in the corner of a large room with two large archways on opposite sides of it. The middle part of it – probably its stomach – was slowly rising up and down. It was still and gave no sign of noticing them. Most likely it was sleeping.

It was truly beautiful. Surely God had created even this with some purpose, no matter how obscure.

They slowly backed off until they were sure it wouldn’t hear them.

“We can’t wait for reinforcements. This thing needs to be killed right here and now before it has a chance to wake up and gobble through the faculty. We have an opportunity to surprise it when it’s sleeping, so me and Eren will take the first strike at its weak spots and the rest of you will then rush in for attack.” Bertrant said.

“Right there with you, captain. I’ll make sure this is quick and painless for us all.” said Eren with a slight smile on his lips. Surely this would be easy.

“Mr. Arlert, I thank you for guiding us this far but you’re a liability in combat. Head back upstairs and tell them to start sending down the guards to this location right away – in case we fail, this thing needs to be disposed of as quickly as possible.”

“Sure but… Are you sure you’ll be able to find your way back once I’ve gone? I could go with the guards and help you return to the surface in case you’d get lost. Stay put in this room after you’re done and don’t stray! I’ll help you back.” Armin felt a pang in his heart. Maybe it was silly, but he had gotten oddly attached to these gruff men during the hours they’d spent together. They were quite down-to-earth. The prospect of them going away made him sad even if he knew that they had willingly chosen a path where Death was always lurking around the corner, baring its teeth in a grin without cheer. He shared a look with the long-haired man, who he now knew was a Basque named Eren Yeager. He now realized he still wanted to get to know him better, that he wanted to see what he was like outside of this extreme situation. He felt like something was slipping through his fingers while he was powerless to pick it back up.

“Goodbye for now. I’ll be back with reinforcements before you know it! I’ll be praying for you.” He walked off into the dark with his lantern and his map. When he had gotten some distance away, he heard the men shouting and a piercing scream that must have come from the creature.

He ran. He picked up enough speed for him to know that he wouldn’t be able to keep it up all the way, throwing his whole strength into making his legs move through the grand cobwebbed halls. That Basque mercenary kept appearing in his mind’s eye, and he had to run to the point of exhaustion to quiet down the feelings that poured through him.

 _Don’t grieve before you know anything has even happened,_ he thought. _Focus on your mission,_ _just put one foot in front of the other and_ _ **don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don't think about it.  
**_


	3. Chapter 3

2 hours later – the journey through the basement went much quicker when they knew where they should go – he returned with 20 wiry guards to the home of the beast. All the students and staff had been evacuated and only a small group of guards still stayed on the campus. It turned out that the hurried trip had been unnecessary. All the mercenaries were lightly splattered with blood, mucus and pieces of black and green skin, but were otherwise without harm. One of them sat down on the ground beside a wall, his left leg wrapped in a piece of cloth.

“Mr. Arlert! Nice to see you again. Frankly, you needn’t have bothered leaving in the first place. This thing barely put up a fight. It was all teeth, no bite - Ho ho ho!” Bertrant said, relieved at an easy, well-paid job.

“I think we hit it really hard with our first sword strikes into its belly. It screamed and started bleeding all over the place. It grabbed Maynart over there with a tentacle and tried to eat him, but trusty Eren over here cut the tentacle off before it did anything more than cause a bone cast. It pulled itself up to the ceiling and started trying to escape through the other exit then, but we could see it grow weak as it lost grip and fell down. It was a mercy kill at that point. Thank the Lord for easy markings, right lads?” Bertrant said as the mercenaries whooped and made celebratory gestures, Eren partaking but clearly the least enthused of them all.

“Let’s go back upstairs. We have a reward to collect and a feast to have!” Bertrant continued, his beard and belly truly making him look like a father to the much younger men he had in his crew. Eren did not look too happy, despite everything having turned out for the best. Armin went up to him – he had large splatters of blood and that glowing green mucus on his underclothes, leather armor and face. He had delivered the first blow and was one of the nearest to the creature, so he along with Bertrant had received the largest dose of bodily fluids from the beast. It was a very strange moment, but his grim expression prevented Armin from making any joke about it. He looked pensive rather than victorious, and he walked some distance behind the other mercenaries as they made their way upstairs.

“Hey, congratulations on the kill! I’m so happy it went well, who knows what that thing could’ve done. I’m happy that you’re all… Uh, alive.” Armin said, making himself happy and pleasant to cheer up this brooding fellow.

“Thank you, Mr. Arlert. It was all too easy, really. Things usually die quickly if you hit them in their sleep.”

“Oh, call me Armin! I’m not much for honorifics, honestly. If you asked me, which you haven’t, I’d say it is a shame that we didn’t have a chance to study that thing. Another strange animal to add to the list of many on this green earth of ours! It needed to die because it was such a threat, but it was just an animal from what I could tell. It didn’t choose to be born a predator.”

“Thank you, _Armin_. I agree with you there. We just did our job, what we were asked to do. It was inevitable that it had to die ever since it ate that poor student’s leg. It followed its nature and we followed ours. There wasn’t anything to do other than fight...”

Despite his words, Eren did not look happy about the events that had just taken place. Was it Armin’s place to ask what he really thought?

“I’m sorry if this is out of place, but are you okay? Did it hurt you or something?”

“I’m fine, I’m really fine. I just have a lot on my mind. I’ll feel much better when I can clean all this blood and… other stuff off me. Say Armin, what do you do when you’re not running around dark basements all by yourself?”

“Funny that you ask, I study biology and nature actually. We dissect animals, go out and pick herbs, look at trees and plants, stick butterflies on needles, things like that. We’ll probably get to study that thing soon enough once the professors have taken a good look at it. What I do is probably not very exciting compared to what you do – it’s a lot of books and dead insects, mostly. I think it’s fun, but I guess you have to have the personality for it...”

“No, I think that sounds interesting. It makes me glad people like that exist. We don’t exactly get to do much studying, the boys and I. Part of why people like me are around is because people like you can’t be great at both studying and defending yourselves at once, so we have to be strong so you guys don’t have to waste your time on playing with swords.”

“That’s an interesting way to think about it. I think you can be good at more than one thing, but I guess the division of labor exists for a reason. You shouldn’t lock yourself into thinking you’re only good at what you already do, though. I didn’t think I was any good at climbing or running before I started going down here – I was always overly cautious. Now I really like doing those kinds of things. I’m rambling again, aren’t I?”

“You are, but there’s nothing wrong with rambling if what you’re saying is interesting. It saves me the trouble of coming up with something to talk about.”

“Do I take that as permission to blather on even more? You might regret that you said that...”

“Hmm... Show me and I’ll judge for myself. I’ll tell you if you’re bothering me.”

This odd little man was clearly eager to talk to him. It was a long time ago someone had displayed genuine interest in just talking to Eren like this. He wanted to hear what he had to say.

By the time they got back up to the surface, Armin wasn’t the one doing all the talking anymore. Bertrant had left them to themselves and only talked to Armin when he needed directions. Armin thought Eren was fascinating, how he had traveled so far from his home and seen so many different places and people despite not being much older than Armin. It was odd how different their lives had been – after his childhood running around the town, Armin had been holed up indoors with his books, never having enough free time to go out much. He had seen his hometown and most of Montpellier with surroundings, but he still hadn’t gotten the freedom to explore that he had longed for. Meanwhile, Eren had had contact with most of the powerful people in all of southern France. He had fought knights and escorted nobility. When Armin had lived inside his head and through his imagination, Eren had actually lived in the real world. He wanted to know even more about him, what he had thought about all he had seen and where he had come from. He started to think about what would happen if they spent a lot of time around each other, if they started _collaborating_. What could they accomplish then? It was dizzying to think about. Armin didn’t want to let this man go away from him to keep fighting like nothing had changed. He wanted to get closer and see what he could find. He would regret it every day if he didn’t try. When they parted after reaching the surface, Armin was the one to take the initiative to book in a _rendez-vous_ the following day when both of them had time off. The meetings then kept coming, with increasing frequency.

* * *

In contrast to his confidence in wielding a sword, Eren felt like a stumbling child when it came to being in love. He had no manual, no map, and no plan. He realized that he had fallen in love with Armin while lying in bed one night, two months after their first meeting. They had previously eaten dinner together in a tavern near the river, Eren paying since Armin couldn’t afford it. They had chatted about the food and various things they had seen or done or thought, much of the initial willingness to impress that came with meeting a new person having worn off and been replaced with a more relaxed attitude. While waiting for sleep to come, he thought what a long time it had been since he had smiled and laughed so much in the presence of another, how long since it felt like he had been on equal terms with someone. Armin didn’t want to hire him or get some kind of service out of him – he just wanted to get to know him and do fun things together with him. And Armin was very fun to be around; he always had a way of viewing things from many different perspectives, of coming up with thoughts that Eren had never thought on his own. His mind was impressive and his manner was very kind and light. He had never really met somebody like that before. This was also the first time he had set foot inside a university – Were all the kind smart people holed up in places like this? If that was the case, he was afraid that Armin would change if he got out into the outside world. Become just as mean and cynical as some of the people he’d killed or even been hired by had been. He suddenly felt that he would do a lot of things to prevent that from happening. He wanted to keep Armin the way he was, or possibly let him become even smarter, even kinder than he already was. People like him were rare and should be treasured – not be brought down to the depths that humans could sink.

There was a sense of camaraderie within his crew, no doubt. Over the years they had gotten pretty attuned to one another, as people who spent so much time around each other were bound to become. They’d had fun outside of the work, drinking their way through taverns and hunting game in forests. Despite this, Eren still felt that there was a certain undefinable distance between him and them. He had spoken Occitan every day for years and had gotten good enough to almost pass for a native speaker at that point. Almost. When the others heard him mispronounce things or misunderstand expressions or sayings, they were quick to point it out. He was the only Basque in the group, and combined with his stand-out skill from an early age made him stick out in an uncomfortable way. The others seemed to resent him for always being personally picked out for the most lucrative assignments, and were somewhat afraid of his temper. They were still primarily a business outfit, and business tended to trump friendship when the bets were down.

Armin wasn’t like any of that, though. Not at all.

When he had heard that Eren wasn’t a native Occitan speaker, he just asked where he was from. He had never met a Basque person before and he was curious to hear how the language sounded. He loved listening to Eren speaking it, its rolling R:s and strange words so unlike any other language he had heard. Armin asked Eren things almost no one had ever asked him before, and certainly not since he’d become a mercenary. About where he was from, what kinds of people he had met, what his genuine opinions were. When he gave him his thoughts, Armin never judged him or sneered at him even if he disagreed. Simple things like what his favorite food was or what clothes he liked and complex things like what he wanted his future to look like and what he thought about God and the Devil. He didn’t always know how to eloquently respond, but it gave him a warm feeling to be asked things like that. It was the first time in God knew how long that someone asked him about something other than what he could do for them. To Armin, Eren wasn’t just a suit of armor holding a sword. He was more than that. Eren feared that it still might not be enough.

The way things usually went, they stuck around every town they were in for a couple of months until it was time to move on. Montpellier was bigger than most, and they would probably be in high demand in the area since the university job had gone so well. They would most likely stay for half a year, maybe longer. After that, he and Armin would part. If Eren and company kept to Occitania and perhaps Savoy, they could probably still see each other a couple times a year. Eren had some basic literacy, but he wouldn’t be able to read or write a letter nearly as well as he could converse normally. He might pay someone to transcribe his letters and read Armin’s aloud. The contact would be highly sporadic and incomplete compared to what they had now. If either of them wanted someone to share their life with, they would have to search elsewhere. They had 4 months or so left. Best not to get too attached. Just 4 months of casual fun and then they would move on with their lives looking much like they had before.

It was at this realization that adrenaline rushed through Eren’s body. He would not get much sleep that night.


	4. Chapter 4

Eren had been the one to confess. He felt a duty to do so. He hadn’t acted on his feelings for one month after he realized that he actually was in love, wanting to see if the feelings would pass or if Armin would confess first in a rare bout of cautiousness and forward-planning. Neither occurred. Eren was aware that he was a sell-sword with a murky future and background, he was poorly read and lacked tact. Armin was from a nice family with a nice education and could look forward to a nice peaceful future as a scholar. Even if he did return Eren’s feelings, he might suppress them because he was such a poor candidate for partnership. He might try to find someone more respectable for the sake of his reputation and future. If Eren put all his cards on the table, he at least wouldn’t have any regrets even if Armin did not love him back.

It had been a rare rainy day in Montpellier as they stood under a belvedere of stone at the top of one of the university buildings. It was late afternoon. The sun would be setting if the sky hadn't been rainy and overcast – he had heard that sunsets were considered romantic and planned his confession for such a setting. Of course the weather had failed him.

“Armin, you could probably guess that I brought you up here to tell you something important.”

“It seemed like that, yeah. You picked a beautiful spot, though! You have good taste.” Armin gave him a slight smile, wanting to make it easy for his clearly flustered friend.

“You know I’m not very well-spoken, so I’m just going to get it over with: I _really_ like you, Armin. I don’t want us to just be friends anymore. I don’t want to be separated from you in 3 months. I want to be with you for longer than that, a lot longer. Hell, I want to see you even more often _now_ than we already are, even if I know you see enough of me to almost get sick of me.”

“So you’re saying that...”

“Yes, I love you. At least I think I do. As much as I have ever loved anyone. I don’t want us to live separately, I want to share a bed with you, I want all of that stuff… Ugh...” Eren felt embarrassed and frustrated. He didn’t even dare look at Armin’s reaction. How absurd, he thought – he had killed more people at the age of 23 than most people would in a lifetime. He had faced the infamous knight called the Boar of Toulouse in one-to-one combat and slain him. When his group couldn’t find any contracts early on, he had entered into gladiatorial combat at the arena in Narbonne and fought 20 men in one day. He won every time, and received first price from the town’s lord himself. And a slim pampered student from a bourgeois family who winced when people argued and never raised his voice was the one to reduce him to his weakest, most vulnerable state. Armin hadn't even planned to, and he had still hit Eren where it hurt the most.

“Oh, Eren...” Armin hugged him.

“I love you too, I really do. I've liked you since I first saw you. I just thought I wouldn’t have much of a shot since you’d be leaving soon and you were such a star mercenary. I didn’t want to tell you to give up all you had known just for my sake. I wanted to enjoy my time with you as a friend while we had it and let things take their course. If you hadn’t confessed just now, I would have – just maybe a little later.”

Eren was crying and blushing. Pitiful, embarrassing. He was glad none of the members of his group was there, they would never let him forget this if they were. He hadn’t quite taken in Armin’s words just yet. Why was there a strange soft texture on his chin?

“Eren, are you listening? I love you! Let’s be more than friends like you said.”

Eren had been listening, and at last the words were beginning to sink in. Before Armin got any response, he was picked up and whirled around. The rest of that day went by in a blur, in a daze of rain and mist. They shared Eren’s single bed in his room at the tavern that night, their limbs intertwining and interlocking, their breaths on each other’s skin.

* * *

2 months had passed since then, and the initial excitement at receiving Armin’s affection had given way to frustration at the completely uncharted territory Eren now found himself in. Previously, not much had gotten in the way of his work. All of a sudden there was now a huge chunk of his time that was spent doing things he’d had very little practice at. He had seen couples in love before – there were some who spent most of their time arguing, but most seemed happy. They seemed carefree and comfortable around their partners, like they knew how to make each other happy without even having to think much about it. He had thought that being in love would make him happy. Why had it made him so miserable?

They hadn’t been together for very long, granted, but Eren had never once stopped feeling inadequate. There was an entirely new duty to perform and nobody had told him how to do it. Armin was in his third year of study out of four, and almost right after Eren’s rooftop confession his burden of study increased considerably. Despite Eren often sleeping in Armin’s bed at the dorms, they actually saw each other less than they had before. Eren could barely read or write, even if his skills were improving under the tutelage of Armin and his friend Jaufres. So he couldn’t help him much with his studies even if he wanted to. Armin would graciously listen to his anecdotes of his travels around Iberia and France, so he knew he did provide Armin with intellectual stimulation, but he wanted to ease his burdens more than he did. The university had paid handsomely for killing the creature in the basement, and the mercenaries had enough money saved up to take it easy with their work and spend their time savoring the joys of Montpellier. There was an imbalance of free time, and Armin’s burdens were such that Eren couldn’t easily lessen them. He had the time, the energy and the will, but not the ability. He felt like somebody was dangling a large and delicious fruit in front of his face, occasionally allowing him to take a bite but always pulling away after a single nibble. When Armin had time over, Eren felt like a starving man. Eren often felt overflowing with energy, and entering a relationship with Armin hadn’t done anything to dampen that feeling. He wanted to wrap himself around Armin and never let go, attaching himself like a lamprey, giving him more kisses than he could handle, running his hands all over him as he asked how his day went and when he would get more time off, when the holidays would come. He had gone loveless for years on end, and he couldn’t stop himself from reaping the fruits of his abstinence now that he finally had the opportunity. He felt ridiculous – before he had admitted his love to Armin he could pass himself off as a cool and interesting guy who had been everywhere and seen everything and was Armin’s perfect conversation and adventuring partner. Now his desperation was laid bare, and he wondered if maybe it would’ve been better if it hadn’t been. Had he actually lived up to any of Armin’s expectations or was he merely sucking out energy that would’ve been better spent on being a scientist? He knew Armin was bright, and if he applied himself he could surely rise to the top of Christendom’s academic elite. The world had much use for his talents. He was only human though and had the same 24 hours in a day as everyone else. Were they being wasted on pandering to the affections of a talentless mercenary?

It was all so dreadfully complicated. Soon after they had gotten into a relationship, Eren started to call Armin _lagun maitea_ , his dear friend, and Armin called Eren _clara solis_ , his bright sun, in the Latin they spoke in his classes. Eren felt embarrassed at being called that - he had never felt like he shone at anything - but Armin said it fit him. Armin said listening to him speaking his own language was seeing another side of him, a side that he liked even if he didn’t understand the words. They tried once to keep a whole conversation where Eren spoke Basque and Armin spoke Latin as a kind of game. It produced some truly ridiculous misunderstandings, and they sometimes repeated it just to listen to each other’s voices. More people spoke Latin than Basque, so Armin took to learning phrases that were for Eren and him alone. That made Eren happy, that he bothered to learn some of his language just so they would have something secret that was only for themselves. What could he do in return? He knew he was strong and a good fighter. If anything ever threatened Armin he wouldn’t hesitate to kill it if necessary. The “problem” was that Armin never got in any fights, so Eren couldn’t sweep in to save him. He always got good grades, so he couldn’t threaten his professors to raise them. He did make him food at times, and would fetch things and people from across the campus if he needed them for his studies. Still, he felt like he was bothering him more than anything. He could, and gladly did, give him physical affection, but he couldn’t easily do that while he was studying – it’s hard to concentrate on your texts while somebody’s stroking your chest – so he felt like a burden if Armin had studies to do, which was often. When he was done he would often be tired and was a bit passive in Eren’s arms, which made him worry if he was putting up with it just to make Eren happy. Armin would have an evening free of responsibility tonight, and Eren would make sure to both make Armin really happy and bring the subject up to him.

* * *

When Armin got home, they quickly started tumbling around in bed – Eren easily defaulting to being physical before moving on to the verbal – but the results weren’t great. Eren was always cautious not to be too hard on Armin, since Eren was both inexperienced and overeager. Armin seemed the type to like gentle romantic peaceful things – things Eren had never gotten much practice at. Plus, his frame was slim and noticeably smaller than his. Eren was a _mercenary_ and Armin was a _future academic_. It seemed like disaster would occur unless Eren controlled himself. That night, it was like self-control had failed him for the first time, and he had grabbed onto Armin in such a rough fashion as to surprise even Eren himself. He had clutched his thin wrists in his rough calloused hands and twisted them around while mounting him. Armin had been startled, had jerked and gone stiff while Eren kept at it, only stopping when Armin managed to twist his arms out of Eren’s grip. The mood had gone sour, and they aborted the act before it was finished.

They sat in bed and thought of a way to break the silence to discuss what had just happened. Eren kept his composure, but on the inside he was distraught. This had just confirmed and worsened the creeping fear he had started to feel ever since they had actually entered a relationship.

He often winced internally as he almost smacked Armin’s back while pulling him in for a hug, when he saw Armin startled as he snaked his arm around his waist, when he would bend Armin’s arms behind his head while moving in for a kiss. It made him feel clumsy, awkward, selfish, immature. He should know the extent his own physical strength by now since he worked with it all the time, and being with Armin reminded him of how inadequate he was when it came to anything more tender, more sensitive. He was good at dispensing pain, at punishing those who may or may not deserve it. Making people _happy_? Not in his repertoire. It was all getting too much for him at that point. The inadequacy of not being able to help Armin, of feeling like he was burdening him with his affections, of feeling like anything he tried to do to him was too much and entirely wrong. He was not the lover that Armin deserved.

He thought about the future that lay ahead of him and of the past that had brought him there.

If Armin didn’t want him anymore, that might not be so bad. He was well-known by now, and he could get even better work outside of the mercenary guild. He might go back to Pamplona and apply to be the personal body guard or sword-for-hire of a nobleman, or even the king himself. He would become a suit of armor holding a sword. Whenever thoughts about what he _wanted_ arose, he could get a hold of enough liquor to quiet them down until they disappeared. He could find a way to lay down his life before he’d hit 40 or so and his body started to decay. If a war with Castille was really on its’ way, he could go out with a bang protecting his charge. He might very well get his name remembered as a hero to his people, having sacrificed himself to turn the tide of the war. He certainly wouldn’t go won in history any other way.

It was all so stupid. He probably shouldn’t even have tried to get it on with Armin in the first place.

Eren lay at the head of the bed with his upper body upright, his lower covered by the blanket. The room was lit by a single big candle, all of their physical flaws disappearing in the soft light. The beauty of it made the awkwardness all the worse. Armin had put on one of Eren’s big shirts just to defuse the weird tension of the situation. Having a heart-to-heart while naked was just strange. Eren’s thoughts dispersed. It was time to take action.

“Armin… I’m sorry for hurting you. Something just flew into me, I didn’t know what I was doing. Not that that’s an excuse...”

“Really, it’s fine. I was just surprised, I’d never had anything like that happen to me since I was a boy and the other kids fought me. It’s not actually too bad, it will bruise but it’s not like anything’s broken.”

“This is what you get for climbing in bed with a _sell-sword_ , Armin. You just said that I’m like one of your childhood bullies. Seriously, I wonder why you put up with me sometimes. You seem to like gentle, somebody who’s nice and sweet. I just feel like I’m breaking something every time I hug you. There’s nothing sweet about me, I’m just good at fighting. This is just more proof of that. Even when I should be loving I just end up hurting you. You spend so much time studying things I can’t help you with and when you’re done with that you have to deal with your needy boyfriend. I’m just another annoying burden taking up your time. I feel like I can’t give you what you actually deserve and I’m tired of it. I’m an idiot for… for falling in love with you.” Eren was rubbing his face with his hand. He could feel a wave of emotion in him – he knew that what he was saying was dangerous and might damage something. He still thought it was true and couldn’t stop himself once he’d started.

“None of that is true, Eren! I’m sorry for bringing the bullies up, that was a bad comparison. You’re not like them at all. And seriously, I could tell pretty quickly that you’re not exactly the type of guy to act all cuddly and sweet all the time. I wouldn’t be with you if that’s what I wanted.”

Eren looked up at Armin then. He sat some distance away from him on the single bed, his expression was unclear but from what he could see it looked gentle and concerned. Eren wanted to look away again.

“Oh really? ‘Cause I always feel like I’m doing something wrong with you. You seem all startled whenever I do anything. It’s like I should stay away, give you more space.”

“Is that how it seems? I’m sorry for not expressing myself more clearly. I’ve never minded the way you are with me. I’m just easily startled. I’ve been like that since I was a child. My body reacts involuntarily, it can’t help it when you sneak up from behind. Maybe I seem stiff, but that’s probably because I’m not used to having somebody around who actually wants to hold me. I’ve been to busy with my books and everything to learn much about romance.”

“Me too I guess, except for the books. You’re the first one I’ve really… Done anything with in a long time.”

“That makes us both newbies then! From now on, you can rest assured that I like everything you do unless I say otherwise. You can just treat me the way _you_ want to. You shouldn’t think you need to fit some kind of ideal in order to be with me. Being with me shouldn’t be a performance. You can just relax. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t.

And I’m sorry for being so busy… I know it’s not easy to be in love with someone who never has the time for you. I want to see you more too, it’s just that I really can’t skip out on my studies. They’re my only chance of ever having a decent career. We can make it work regardless, remember that I only have a year and a half left until I’m done and can have a more normal schedule. Just hold on until then! We can come up with strategies to work around it. Tell you what, I’ll make a schedule! I’ll try to have at least one day a week clear of studying that I can spend only on you. You might see me less during the week but I’ll be well-rested and free to spend time with you on that day. I’ll study hard before the holidays so those are clear too. I’ll make it all up to you, both on the breaks and after I’m done studying. And really, if you want anything from me, you can just go ahead and say it. You shouldn’t feel like you have to hide what you want because it’s embarrassing. I’ll tell you when I want something and you’ll tell me when you want something, okay? We can make this work as long as we’re completely honest with each other.” He had pulled up his legs on to the bed where he sat looking at Eren, his face barely visible in the gloom.

Eren had been so stupid. Again. His fear and worry had been misplaced. If Armin wanted nice and delicate he definitely wasn’t selling what he was buying, but he couldn’t have known what Armin had wanted for sure. He felt tears stinging his eyes now. He had cried more in the last 4 months than he had done in the 5 years before them.

“Is all of that true? You haven’t been mad at me or anything?”

“It is true! I like you because you’re _you_ , Eren, not because you can act like someone else. When you’re with me I want you to think “What does Eren Yeager want to do?”, not “What does Armin Arlert want Eren Yeager to do?” That’s much more interesting to me, it makes me much happier.” Armin was sitting facing Eren now and it seemed like he was beginning to get up.

“I like you because you’re honest and coarse, because you’ve done so much that I’ve never done. And you’re not as mean as you consider yourself, you wouldn’t be so concerned about me if you were. I like you because you’re serious, because you’re beautiful and strong. And I’m really not that nice, I don’t want everything to be sweet and innocent. I like bugs and things that crawl, I like reading about the Devil and His sabbath, I like taking things apart and seeing their innards. It makes me happy seeing others fight for my sake, it makes me feel important. I like it when you pull my hair and twist me, I like you _because_ you’re not soft like a stuffed animal.”

He had moved closer and now sat on his knees right next to Eren. He gently took Eren’s arm, put it under his shirt and slowly moved it on his bony chest.

“I want to make you happy, Eren. If grabbing me roughly or twisting my wrists make you happy you can go right ahead. I enjoy it. I was just surprised since I didn’t know you wanted to do things like that. Now I know and won’t be surprised anymore. We shouldn’t keep our wants in the dark. I like all of you and not just the parts that are considered more acceptable. You don’t have to change anything for my sake. Not a single thing...”

“Armin… Thank you, but that’s enough...”

Undeterred, he continued holding Eren's arm on himself and started to move his face closer to Eren’s neck.

“You can be harsh and not gentle because that’s who you are and not for any other reason. I welcome it. I can take a lot of things, I’m not someone who needs to be coddled. I might be weak in some ways but so are you too. That’s alright, us weaklings get to feel a lot of things that the strong ones miss out on. Go right ahead and take everything you want from me – no matter how much you take I will never run out because you fill me up at the same time. Don’t worry so much, all is well as long as it’s you and me...”

“Armin, _stop it!_ ”

Eren had to push Armin’s face away from him before he could reach his neck. He didn’t know how he would react if he did. He also managed to pull his arm away from Armin's not particularly strong grasp. He really was crying now. What had he done to deserve all of this? He hugged Armin since he didn’t think he could take a kiss at the moment. Armin started crying too, and they spent a while like that, just crying and laughing and hugging each other. It was fairly late by then, and they started feeling Hypnos beside them in the dark room. Their fears had been assuaged. Now they felt only excitement at the future ahead.

“...I don’t think any more sex is on schedule tonight.”

“No, I don’t think so either.”

* * *

That vision of the future Eren had where he was a bodyguard for the king no longer held much sway. That might have been him if he’d never met Armin or if he had left him, but as long as he had him he would never give Armin up. He left his crew and took up a position as guard and sword-for-hire at the university. They wanted to increase security after the incident in the basement. Bertrant was disappointed, but he said that he deep down always knew that Eren would not want to stay with them forever. If things did not work out with Armin, he would always be welcome back. The pay wasn’t as good as what he could get as a mercenary, but that was secondary. Violence was what he was good at, and unfortunately his only real option to make a living at the moment. Take violence away from him and what would be left? He still wasn’t quite sure, but he was no longer afraid to find out.

When the university went on expeditions to other cities or to natural sites, Eren would accompany them along with a couple of other guards to make sure everything went well. On those journeys, Armin and Eren had an excuse to spend lots of time around another, and Eren was glad to be able to join Armin in his studies as well as to help him out. It wasn’t just some abstract thing that Armin ran away to the lecture hall to do. The other students sniggered at them for thinking they were sneaky and secretive when they absolutely weren’t, and at their soft-spoken classmate for falling in love with such an imposing figure. Their jokes masked the fact that they were actually jealous of them.

The strange beast's taxidermied corpse would be put on display somewhere on the campus as soon as the administration could agree on where it should be placed. The incident had convinced them that the basement must be explored and charted in full, and it now had both researchers and guards stationed all day long. Armin had gone down there again, but since it was no longer his own special place it didn't hold the charm it once had. The event that had ruined the basement for him was also what led him to meet Eren, and he always thought it should be explored by more people than himself. So this was all for the best. Really, it was.

When Armin was done with his studies, they would take a boat from Marseille to Naples, where Armin had gotten a post as a visiting scholar for one year’s time. Naples was the Mediterranean’s largest city, and its’ center. Everything seemed to converge there. There would be so much exploring to do when they got off from work, both of the area and of each other.

After that, they didn’t know. Armin had promised to follow Eren home to Pamplona at one point. They could meet his family for the first time in many years, and Eren could show Armin the San Fermin festival, the running of the bulls. He didn’t think he’d let him participate even if he wanted to – some things were just beyond the pale – but he might join in himself. He wouldn’t be able to support his family as much anymore since he wasn’t earning as much, but they had a lot of other people to rely on. He thought it was time to prioritize himself a little bit. He was tied to Armin now as well as to his family. It was natural that he couldn’t prioritize them as much.

* * *

They were standing in the great harbor of Marseille, the pride of France’s naval ambitions. The boat to Naples would be arriving in some 15 minutes, and they would say goodbye to the city they had never spent much time in. Eren had stopped worrying so much about his performance after their talk that night, but a general wish to please Armin remained. That was natural. He had discovered a lot of things that he could do besides fighting – he genuinely enjoyed cooking, although he wasn’t good at recipes that required finely calibrated tastes or lots of preparation. He also started to build and repair buildings and objects, sometimes helping construction workers around Montpellier out with menial tasks and spending time in the university’s mechanical workshop. When he had learned how to read well, he sometimes read books about the world and of fairy tales, although his restlessness prevented him from not throwing the book away once it hit a boring segment. There was also the untold amount of ways he could poke and prod at Armin Arlert. That never stopped being fun.

When they reached Naples, he would apply for a post at the city guard. Some things never changed. He hoped this would allow him to protect the citizenry from evil-doers rather than run errands of the rich and powerful like his previous line of work had. He was too good at doing violence to put it away for good, but he would try to channel it into something positive. He could put it away when Armin was around, but the world unfortunately wasn’t such that they’d be able to survive just by being around each other at all times. They would always have to live with some amount of separation.

“Tell me Eren, what is the first thing you want to do when we reach Naples?”

“Well, we have lots of luggage, so first we’ll have to unload all of our stuff into the apartment. It’s a long walk from the harbor, so we’ll probably get tired and have to rest...”

“I mean, _after_ we’re done with all those boring practical things?”

“I think I would like to try out some seafood. Neapolitan cuisine is legendary. After that, I want to spend the rest of the night at home. There isn’t much privacy on a boat, you know, so some things might be hard. What’s the first thing you want to do when we reach Naples, Armin?”

“I think I want to get up on deck when we approach. I’ve never been there before, so I want to get a good look at it before we’re burdened by the luggage on our backs. After that I’ll probably want to try out some local cuisine, and then we could spend the night at home. My job won’t start until a week after we arrive, so we’ll have lots of time just to ourselves before we have to act responsible. We can spend the days in whatever way we like.”

“That sounds great, Armin. A wonderful plan. You always come up with the best ones.”

They then noticed that the boat had arrived and was just about to lay anchor. There would be much time for making plans on it. Making plans and then acting on them, one hand following the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Feedback is highly appreciated.


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